.\" Author:
.\" Miguel de Icaza (miguel@gnu.org)
.\"
-.de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP)
-.if t .sp .5v
-.if n .sp
-..
-.TH Mono "Mono 1.0"
+.TH Mono "Mono 2.2"
.SH NAME
mono \- Mono's ECMA-CLI native code generator (Just-in-Time and Ahead-of-Time)
.SH SYNOPSIS
.SH RUNTIME OPTIONS
The following options are available:
.TP
-.I "--aot"
+\fB--aot\fR, \fB--aot[=options]\fR
This option is used to precompile the CIL code in the specified
assembly to native code. The generated code is stored in a file with
the extension .so. This file will be automatically picked up by the
compilation program startup costs. The original assembly must still
be present, as the metadata is contained there.
.Sp
+AOT code typically can not be moved from one computer to another
+(CPU-specific optimizations that are detected at runtime) so you
+should not try to move the pre-generated assemblies or package the
+pre-generated assemblies for deployment.
+.Sp
+A few options are available as a parameter to the
+.B --aot
+command line option. The options are separated by commas, and more
+than one can be specified:
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+.I bind-to-runtime-version
+.Sp
+If specified, forces the generated AOT files to be bound to the
+runtime version of the compiling Mono. This will prevent the AOT
+files from being consumed by a different Mono runtime.
+.I full
+This is currently an experimental feature as it is not complete.
+This instructs Mono to precompile code that has historically not been
+precompiled with AOT.
+.TP
+.I write-symbols
+Instructs the AOT compiler to emit debug symbol information.
+.TP
+.I static
+Create an ELF object file (.o) which can be statically linked into an executable
+when embedding the mono runtime. When this option is used, the object file needs to
+be registered with the embedded runtime using the mono_aot_register_module function
+which takes as its argument the mono_aot_module_<ASSEMBLY NAME>_info global symbol
+from the object file:
+
+.nf
+extern void *mono_aot_module_hello_info;
+
+mono_aot_register_module (mono_aot_module_hello_info);
+.fi
+.ne
+
+.PP
For more information about AOT, see: http://www.mono-project.com/AOT
+.RE
.TP
-.I "--config filename"
+\fB--attach=[options]\fR
+Currently the only option supported by this command line argument is
+\fBdisable\fR which disables the attach functionality.
+.TP
+\fB--full-aot\fR
+This is an experimental flag that instructs the Mono runtime to not
+generate any code at runtime and depend exclusively on the code
+generated from using mono --aot=full previously. This is useful for
+platforms that do not permit dynamic code generation.
+.Sp
+Notice that this feature will abort execution at runtime if a codepath
+in your program, or Mono's class libraries attempts to generate code
+dynamically. You should test your software upfront and make sure that
+you do not use any dynamic features.
+.TP
+\fB--config filename\fR
Load the specified configuration file instead of the default one(s).
The default files are /etc/mono/config and ~/.mono/config or the file
specified in the MONO_CONFIG environment variable, if set. See the
mono-config(5) man page for details on the format of this file.
.TP
-.I "--desktop"
+\fB--desktop\fR
Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for desktop
applications. Currently this sets the GC system to avoid expanding
the heap as much as possible at the expense of slowing down garbage
collection a bit.
.TP
-.I "--help", "-h"
+\fB--help\fR, \fB-h\fR
Displays usage instructions.
.TP
-.I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=MODE"
+\fB--optimize=MODE\fR, \fB-O=MODE\fR
MODE is a comma separated list of optimizations. They also allow
optimizations to be turned off by prefixing the optimization name with
a minus sign.
.Sp
+In general, Mono has been tuned to use the default set of flags,
+before using these flags for a deployment setting, you might want to
+actually measure the benefits of using them.
+.Sp
The following optimizations are implemented:
.nf
all Turn on all optimizations
copyprop Copy propagation
deadce Dead code elimination
linears Linear scan global reg allocation
- cmov Conditional moves
+ cmov Conditional moves [arch-dependency]
shared Emit per-domain code
sched Instruction scheduling
intrins Intrinsic method implementations
tailc Tail recursion and tail calls
loop Loop related optimizations
- fcmov Fast x86 FP compares
+ fcmov Fast x86 FP compares [arch-dependency]
leaf Leaf procedures optimizations
aot Usage of Ahead Of Time compiled code
precomp Precompile all methods before executing Main
abcrem Array bound checks removal
ssapre SSA based Partial Redundancy Elimination
- sse2 SSE2 instructions on x86
+ sse2 SSE2 instructions on x86 [arch-dependency]
+ gshared Enable generic code sharing.
.fi
.Sp
For example, to enable all the optimization but dead code
.nf
-O=all,-deadce,-inline
.fi
+.Sp
+The flags that are flagged with [arch-dependency] indicate that the
+given option if used in combination with Ahead of Time compilation
+(--aot flag) would produce pre-compiled code that will depend on the
+current CPU and might not be safely moved to another computer.
.TP
-.I "--runtime=VERSION"
+\fB--runtime=VERSION\fR
Mono supports different runtime versions. The version used depends on the program
that is being run or on its configuration file (named program.exe.config). This option
can be used to override such autodetection, by forcing a different runtime version
mono --runtime=v2.0.50727 program.exe
.fi
.TP
-.I "--security", "--security=mode"
+\fB--security\fR, \fB--security=mode\fR
Activate the security manager, a currently experimental feature in
-Mono and it is OFF by default.
+Mono and it is OFF by default. The new code verifier can be enabled
+with this option as well.
.RS
.ne 8
.PP
Moonlight/Silverlight applications. It provides a much simpler
security system than CAS, see http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
for more details and links to the descriptions of this new system.
+.TP
+.I validil
+Enables the new verifier and performs basic verification for code
+validity. In this mode, unsafe code and P/Invoke are allowed. This
+mode provides a better safety guarantee but it is still possible
+for managed code to crash Mono.
+.TP
+.I verifiable
+Enables the new verifier and performs full verification of the code
+being executed. It only allows verifiable code to be executed.
+Unsafe code is not allowed but P/Invoke is. This mode should
+not allow managed code to crash mono. The verification is not as
+strict as ECMA 335 standard in order to stay compatible with the MS
+runtime.
+.PP
+The security system acts on user code: code contained in mscorlib or
+the global assembly cache is always trusted.
.ne
.RE
.TP
-.I "--server"
+\fB--server\fR
Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for server
operations (currently, a no-op).
.TP
-.I "-V", "--version"
+\fB--verify-all\fR
+Verifies mscorlib and assemblies in the global
+assembly cache for valid IL, and all user code for IL
+verifiability.
+
+This is different from \fB--security\fR's verifiable
+or validil in that these options only check user code and skip
+mscorlib and assemblies located on the global assembly cache.
+.TP
+\fB-V\fR, \fB--version\fR
Prints JIT version information (system configuration, release number
and branch names if available).
.SH DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
The following options are used to help when developing a JITed application.
.TP
-.I "--debug"
+\fB--debug\fR, \fB--debug=OPTIONS\fR
Turns on the debugging mode in the runtime. If an assembly was
compiled with debugging information, it will produce line number
information for stack traces.
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.PP
+The optional OPTIONS argument is a comma separated list of debugging
+options. These options are turned off by default since they generate
+much larger and slower code at runtime.
+.TP
+The following options are supported:
.TP
-.I "--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]"
+.I casts
+Produces a detailed error when throwing a InvalidCastException. This
+option needs to be enabled as this generates more verbose code at
+execution time.
+.TP
+.I mdb-optimizations
+Disable some JIT optimizations which are usually only disabled when
+running inside the debugger. This can be helpful if you want to attach
+to the running process with mdb.
+.ne
+.RE
+.TP
+\fB--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]\fR
Turns on profiling. For more information about profiling applications
and code coverage see the sections "PROFILING" and "CODE COVERAGE"
below.
.TP
-.I "--trace[=expression]"
+\fB--trace[=expression]\fR
Shows method names as they are invoked. By default all methods are
traced.
.Sp
The maintainer options are only used by those developing the runtime
itself, and not typically of interest to runtime users or developers.
.TP
-.I "--break method"
+\fB--break method\fR
Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
(namespace.class:methodname). Use `Main' as method name to insert a
breakpoint on the application's main method.
.TP
-.I "--breakonex"
+\fB--breakonex\fR
Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions. This allows you to debug your
application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
.TP
-.I "--compile name"
+\fB--compile name\fR
This compiles a method (namespace.name:methodname), this is used for
testing the compiler performance or to examine the output of the code
generator.
.TP
-.I "--compileall"
+\fB--compileall\fR
Compiles all the methods in an assembly. This is used to test the
compiler performance or to examine the output of the code generator
.TP
-.I "--graph=TYPE METHOD"
+\fB--graph=TYPE METHOD\fR
This generates a postscript file with a graph with the details about
the specified method (namespace.name:methodname). This requires `dot'
and ghostview to be installed (it expects Ghostview to be called
Some graphs will only be available if certain optimizations are turned
on.
.TP
-.I "--ncompile"
+\fB--ncompile\fR
Instruct the runtime on the number of times that the method specified
by --compile (or all the methods if --compileall is used) to be
compiled. This is used for testing the code generator performance.
.TP
-.I "--stats"
+\fB--stats\fR
Displays information about the work done by the runtime during the
execution of an application.
.TP
-.I "--wapi=hps|semdel"
+\fB--wapi=hps|semdel\fR
Perform maintenance of the process shared data.
.Sp
semdel will delete the global semaphore.
.Sp
hps will list the currently used handles.
.TP
-.I "-v", "--verbose"
+\fB-v\fR, \fB--verbose\fR
Increases the verbosity level, each time it is listed, increases the
verbosity level to include more information (including, for example,
a disassembly of the native code produced, code selector info etc.).
+.SH ATTACH SUPPORT
+The Mono runtime allows external processes to attach to a running
+process and load assemblies into the running program. To attach to
+the process, a special protocol is implemented in the Mono.Management
+assembly.
+.PP
+With this support it is possible to load assemblies that have an entry
+point (they are created with -target:exe or -target:winexe) to be
+loaded and executed in the Mono process.
+.PP
+The code is loaded into the root domain, and it starts execution on
+the special runtime attach thread. The attached program should
+create its own threads and return after invocation.
+.PP
+This support allows for example debugging applications by having the
+csharp shell attach to running processes.
.SH PROFILING
The mono runtime includes a profiler that can be used to explore
various performance related problems in your application. The
be the preferred profiler to use (for better output use the full path
to the mono binary when running and make sure you have installed the
addr2line utility that comes from the binutils package).
-.SH PROFILERS
+.SH LOGGING PROFILER
+.PP
+The
+.I logging profiler
+will eventually replace the default profiler as it is more complete
+and encompasses the functionality of all the other profilers for Mono.
+It supports the following execution modes:
+.IP
+.I Statistical:
+the program instruction pointer is periodically sampled (it works also with
+unmanaged functions). If call chains are requested, for each sample the
+profiler gets a partial stack trace (up to a desired depth) so that
+caller-callee information is available.
+.IP
+.I Instrumenting:
+each method enter and exit is logged with a timestamp; further processing of
+the data can show the methods that took the longer to execute, with complete
+accounting for callers and callees. However, this way of profiling is rather
+intrusive and slows down the application significantly.
+.IP
+.I Allocation:
+each allocation is logged.
+.IP
+.I Allocation summary:
+shows, for each collection, a summary of the heap contents broken down by
+class (for each class the number of allocated and released objects is
+given, together with their aggregated size in bytes).
+.IP
+.I Heap snapshot mode:
+dumps the whole heap contents at every collection (or at user specified
+collections). It is also possible to request a collection and snapshot dump
+with a signal.
+.PP
+Moreover, other events can be logged and analyzed, like jit time for each
+method, load and unload for assemblies, modules and and individual classes,
+and appdomain and thread creation and destruction.
+.PP
+Instead of reporting the collected
+information at the end of the execution of the program, this profiler logs
+all the events periodically into a file during program execution.
+To minimize the performance impact with multi-threaded applications,
+the logging uses per-thread buffers that are routinely saved to disk.
+.PP
+The output file contains compressed events, to process the data you should
+use tools like the "Mono.Profiler" tool provided on the Mono SVN
+repository.
+.PP
+This profiler is activated passing the \fB--profile=logging\fR option to
+the mono runtime, and is controlled attaching further options, like
+\fB--profile=logging:stat\fR for doing statistical profiling (multiple
+options are separated by commas).
+.PP
+As a quick primer, here are a few examples of the most common usage modes:
+.PP
+To write the resulting data to "mydata.mprof" (defaults to statistical
+profiling):
+.nf
+
+ mono --profile=logging:o=mydata.mprof program.exe
+.fi
+.PP
+To perform statistical profiling, inspecting call chains up to depth 8:
+.nf
+
+ mono --profile=logging:s=8 program.exe
+.fi
+.PP
+To profile allocations with caller method attribution:
+.nf
+
+ mono --profile=logging:a,ts program.exe
+.fi
+.PP
+To profile garbage collection activity (collection time and objects freed
+at each collection):
+.nf
+
+ mono --profile=logging:g,as program.exe
+.fi
+.PP
+Then you would need to invoke the decoder \fImprof-decoder(1)\fR
+on the output file to see the profiling results.
+.PP
+These are all the available oprions, organized by category:
+.PP
+\fBExecution profiling modes\fR
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+\fIstatistical\fR, \fIstat\fR or \fIs\fR
+Performs statistical profiling. This is a lightweight profiling
+mechanism and it has a much lower overhead than the \fIenter-leave\fR
+profiling as it works by sampling where the program is spending its
+time by using a timer.
+If specified with \fIs=<number>\fR, also inspect call chains up to level
+<number>.
+.TP
+\fIenter-leave\fR, \fIcalls\fR or \fIc\fR
+Measure the time spent inside each method call, this is done by
+logging the time when a method enters and when the method leaves.
+This can be a time consuming operation.
+.TP
+\fIjit\fR, \fIj\fR
+Collect information about time spent by the JIT engine compiling
+methods.
+.TP
+\fItrack-stack\fR, \fIts\fR
+Track the execution stack. By itself this option does nothing, but it
+enables more detailed reporting in other options (because the profiler
+will use the stack data).
+.ne
+.RE
+.PP
+\fBAllocation profiling modes\fR
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+\fIallocations\fR, \fIalloc\fR or \fIa\fR
+Collect information about each allocation (object class and size).
+If combined with the "ts" option, for each allocation the profiler will
+also show the responsible method (and also correctly dintinguish allocations
+performed during JIT time).
+These information are also available when combining the "a" and "c" options,
+but since "c" is much more intrusive "ts" should be preferred.
+.TP
+\fIsave-allocation-stack\fR, \fIsas\fR
+Save the execution stack at each allocation. While the "ts" option saves the
+direct caller, this one records the whole stack trace. Note that for technical
+reasons the decoder will correctly ignore wrapper methods only using the data
+saved by the "ts" option (the stack traces still contain all the wrappers).
+Anyway the "ts" and "sas" options can be combined, and the decoder will
+attribute the allocation to the correct method even if the wrapper is at the
+top of the stack trace.
+.TP
+\fIallocations-summary\fR or \fIas\fR
+At each collection dump a summary
+of the heap contents (for each class, the number and collective size of all
+live and freed heap objects). This very lightweight compared to full heap
+snapshots.
+.TP
+\fIunreachable\fR, \fIfree\fR or \fIf\fR
+Performs a lightweight profile of the garbage collector. On each
+collection performed by the GC, the list of unreachable objects is
+recorded, and for each object the class and size is provided. This
+information can be used to compute the heap size broken down by class
+(combined with "a" can give the same information of "as", but the log
+file contains info about each individual object, while in "as" the
+processing is done directly at runtime and the log file contains only
+the summarized data broken down by class).
+.TP
+\fIgc\fR or \fIg\fR
+Measure the time spent in each collection, and also trace heap resizes.
+.TP
+\fIheap-shot\fR, \fIheap\fR or \fIh\fR
+Performs full heap profiling. In this case on each
+collection a full heap snapshot is recorded to disk.
+Inside the snapshots, each object reference is still represented so
+that it's possible to investigate who is responsible for keeping objects
+alive.
+.PP
+The actual production of heap snapshots could produce large log files,
+so it can be controlled in three ways:
+.TP
+\fIgc-dumps=N\fR, \fIgc-d=N\fR, \fIgcd=N\fR
+states the number of snapshots that must be dumped (since the application
+starts). Zero means no dumps at all, -1 means dump at all collections.
+.TP
+\fIgc-signal=<signal>\fR, \fIgc-s\fR or \fIgcs\fR
+(where <signal> is one of "SIGUSR1", "SIGUSR2", or "SIGPROF")
+specifies a signal that will immediately trigger a collection and a dump.
+.TP
+\fIgc-commands=FILE\fR, \fIgc-c=FILE\fR or \fIgcc=FILE\fR
+specify a "command file". The file must contain an integer value in ASCII
+form, and the profiler will stat it at every collection.
+If it has been modified it will interpret its contents as a \fIgcd=N\fR
+option value, and dump the required number of snapshots from that moment
+onwards.
+If the file is present at application startup it takes precedence over an
+eventual \fIgcd=N\fR option.
+.ne
+.RE
+.PP
+\fBProfiler activity control\fR
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+\fIoutput=FILE\fR, \fIout=FILE\fR or \fIo=FILE\fR
+Use this option to provide the output file name for the profile log.
+If this option is not specified, it will default to "<program-name>.mprof".
+.TP
+\fIoutput-suffix=SUFFIX\fR, \fIsuffix=SUFFIX\fR or \fIos=SUFFIX\fR: makes
+the output file name equals to "<program-name>-SUFFIX.mprof".
+.TP
+\fIstart-enabled\fR or \fIse\fR: start with the profiler active
+(which is the default).
+.TP
+\fIstart-disabled\fR or \fIsd\fR: start with the profiler inactive.
+.TP
+\fItoggle-signal=<SIGNAL>\fR or \fIts=<SIGNAL>\fR (where <SIGNAL>
+is one of SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2 or SIGPROF): Choose a signal that will be used to
+toggle the profiler activity on and off. This way you can decide to profile
+only portions of the applicatopn lifetime (for instance, you can decide to
+avoid profiling an initial setup phase using \fIsd\fR, and enable the
+profiler later delivering the signal to the application).
+.TP
+\fIforce-accurate-timer\fR (or \fIfac\fR): the profiler by default uses
+rtdsc to acquire timestamps for frequent events, but this can be imprecise;
+using this option you force the use of "gettimeofday" at every event, which
+is more accurate but much slower.
+.ne
+.RE
+.PP
+\fBInternal buffer sizes\fR
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+\fIper-thread-buffer-size=N\fR, \fItbs=N\fR
+Use to specify the number of events that a thread buffer
+can hold. When the thread buffer is full, a log block is
+written to disk.
+.Sp
+This defaults to tbs=10000.
+.TP
+\fIstatistical-thread-buffer-size=N\fR, \fIsbs=N\fR
+The number of statistical samples that
+are held in memory before they are dumped to disk (the system does
+double-buffering and the statistical samples are written by a helper
+thread, so the statistical profiler never stops and is able to profile
+the profiler itself).
+.Sp
+This defaults to sbs=10000.
+.TP
+\fIwrite-buffer-size\fR, \fIwbs\fR
+Specifies the size in bytes of the internal write buffers.
+.Sp
+This defaults to wbs=1024.
+.ne
+.RE
+.PP
+In its current state, this profiler can also perform heap analysis (like
+heap-shot), and the decoder is already able to read the data, however
+the user interface for this feature is experimental (the
+\fImprof-heap-viewer\fR tool in the mono-tools module).
+.PP
+Another known issue is that if the timer is not strictly monotonic (like
+rtdsc), differences between times can underflow (they are handled as
+unsigned integers) and weird numbers can show up in the logs.
+.PP
+Finally, it can happen that when exceptions are thrown the profiler temporarily
+loses track of the execution stack and misattributes the caller for a few
+allocations (and method execution time).
+.PP
+More explanations are provided here: "http://www.mono-project.com/LoggingProfiler".
+.SH EXTERNAL PROFILERS
There are a number of external profilers that have been developed for
Mono, we will update this section to contain the profilers.
.PP
To install you must download the profiler
from Mono's SVN:
.nf
- svn co svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/heap-shot
+ svn co svn://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/heap-shot
cd heap-shot
./autogen
make
objects of a given type. To install you must download the profiler
from Mono's SVN:
.nf
- svn co svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/heap-prof
+ svn co svn://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/heap-prof
cd heap-prof
./autogen
make
.SH CODE COVERAGE
Mono ships with a code coverage module. This module is activated by
using the Mono --profile=cov option. The format is:
-.I "--profile=cov[:assembly-name[/namespace]] test-suite.exe"
+\fB--profile=cov[:assembly-name[/namespace]] test-suite.exe\fR
.PP
By default code coverage will default to all the assemblies loaded,
you can limit this by specifying the assembly name, for example to
.PP
A more powerful coverage tool is available in the module `monocov'.
See the monocov(1) man page for details.
-.SH DEBUGGING
+.SH DEBUGGING AIDS
+To debug managed applications, you can use the
+.B mdb
+command, a command line debugger.
+.PP
It is possible to obtain a stack trace of all the active threads in
Mono by sending the QUIT signal to Mono, you can do this from the
command line, like this:
and the application might crash or terminate at any given point
afterwards.
.PP
+The \fB--debug=casts\FR option can be used to get more detailed
+information for Invalid Cast operations, it will provide information
+about the types involved.
+.PP
You can use the MONO_LOG_LEVEL and MONO_LOG_MASK environment variables
to get verbose debugging output about the execution of your
application within Mono.
(for example: MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS=0,nofallback).
.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
.TP
-.I "GC_DONT_GC"
+\fBGC_DONT_GC\fR
Turns off the garbage collection in Mono. This should be only used
for debugging purposes
.TP
-.I "MONO_AOT_CACHE"
+\fBMONO_AOT_CACHE\fR
If set, this variable will instruct Mono to ahead-of-time compile new
assemblies on demand and store the result into a cache in
~/.mono/aot-cache.
.TP
-.I "MONO_CFG_DIR"
+\fBMONO_CFG_DIR\fR
If set, this variable overrides the default system configuration directory
($PREFIX/etc). It's used to locate machine.config file.
.TP
-.I "MONO_CONFIG"
+\fBMONO_COM\fR
+Sets the style of COM interop. If the value of this variable is "MS"
+Mono will use string marhsalling routines from the liboleaut32 for the
+BSTR type library, any other values will use the mono-builtin BSTR
+string marshalling.
+.TP
+\fBMONO_CONFIG\fR
If set, this variable overrides the default runtime configuration file
($PREFIX/etc/mono/config). The --config command line options overrides the
environment variable.
.TP
-.I "MONO_DEBUG"
+\fBMONO_DEBUG\fR
If set, enables some features of the runtime useful for debugging.
This variable should contain a comma separated list of debugging options.
Currently, the following options are supported:
.RS
.ne 8
.TP
-.I "collect-pagefault-stats"
+\fBbreak-on-unverified\fR
+If this variable is set, when the Mono VM runs into a verification
+problem, instead of throwing an exception it will break into the
+debugger. This is useful when debugging verifier problems
+.TP
+\fBcollect-pagefault-stats\fR
Collects information about pagefaults. This is used internally to
track the number of page faults produced to load metadata. To display
-this information you must use this option with "--stats" command line option.
-.TP
-.I "handle-sigint"
+this information you must use this option with "--stats" command line
+option.
+.TP
+\fBdont-free-domains\fR
+This is an Optimization for multi-AppDomain applications (most
+commonly ASP.NET applications). Due to internal limitations Mono,
+Mono by default does not use typed allocations on multi-appDomain
+applications as they could leak memory when a domain is unloaded.
+.Sp
+Although this is a fine default, for applications that use more than
+on AppDomain heavily (for example, ASP.NET applications) it is worth
+trading off the small leaks for the increased performance
+(additionally, since ASP.NET applications are not likely going to
+unload the application domains on production systems, it is worth
+using this feature).
+.TP
+\fBhandle-sigint\fR
Captures the interrupt signal (Control-C) and displays a stack trace
when pressed. Useful to find out where the program is executing at a
given point. This only displays the stack trace of a single thread.
.TP
-.I "keep-delegates"
+\fBkeep-delegates\fR
This option will leak delegate trampolines that are no longer
referenced as to present the user with more information about a
delegate misuse. Basically a delegate instance might be created,
which will garbage collect the code. With this option it is possible
to track down the source of the problems.
.TP
-.I "break-on-unverified"
-If this variable is set, when the Mono VM runs into a verification
-problem, instead of throwing an exception it will break into the
-debugger. This is useful when debugging verifier problems
+\fBno-gdb-backtrace\fR
+This option will disable the GDB backtrace emitted by the runtime
+after a SIGSEGV or SIGABRT in unmanaged code.
.ne
.RE
.TP
-.I "MONO_DISABLE_AIO"
+\fBMONO_DISABLE_AIO\fR
If set, tells mono NOT to attempt using native asynchronous I/O services. In
that case, a default select/poll implementation is used. Currently only epoll()
is supported.
.TP
-.I "MONO_DISABLE_MANAGED_COLLATION"
+\fBMONO_DISABLE_MANAGED_COLLATION\fR
If this environment variable is `yes', the runtime uses unmanaged
collation (which actually means no culture-sensitive collation). It
internally disables managed collation functionality invoked via the
members of System.Globalization.CompareInfo class. Collation is
enabled by default.
.TP
-.I "MONO_EGD_SOCKET"
+\fBMONO_EGD_SOCKET\fR
For platforms that do not otherwise have a way of obtaining random bytes
this can be set to the name of a file system socket on which an egd or
prngd daemon is listening.
.TP
-.I "MONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE"
+\fBMONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE\fR
Sets the type of event log provider to use (for System.Diagnostics.EventLog).
.Sp
Possible values are:
"win32" on Windows NT (and higher).
.RE
.TP
-.I "MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS"
+\fBMONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS\fR
If set, contains a colon-separated list of text encodings to try when
turning externally-generated text (e.g. command-line arguments or
filenames) into Unicode. The encoding names come from the list
In general if you have problems with encodings in your filenames you
should use the "convmv" program.
.TP
-.I "MONO_GAC_PREFIX"
+\fBMONO_GAC_PREFIX\fR
Provides a prefix the runtime uses to look for Global Assembly Caches.
Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on
unix). MONO_GAC_PREFIX should point to the top directory of a prefixed
install. Or to the directory provided in the gacutil /gacdir command. Example:
.B /home/username/.mono:/usr/local/mono/
.TP
-.I "MONO_IOMAP"
+\fBMONO_IOMAP\fR
Enables some filename rewriting support to assist badly-written
applications that hard-code Windows paths. Set to a colon-separated
list of "drive" to strip drive letters, or "case" to do
.fi
.TP
-.I "MONO_MANAGED_WATCHER"
-If set to any value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
-managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use FAM under
-Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling back to the
-managed implementation on error.
+\fBMONO_MANAGED_WATCHER\fR
+If set to "disabled", System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use a file watcher
+implementation which silently ignores all the watching requests.
+If set to any other value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
+managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use inotify, FAM,
+Gamin, kevent under Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling
+back to the managed implementation on error.
.TP
-.I "MONO_NO_SMP"
+\fBMONO_NO_SMP\fR
If set causes the mono process to be bound to a single processor. This may be
useful when debugging or working around race conditions.
.TP
-.I "MONO_PATH"
+\fBMONO_PATH\fR
Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library
files. This is a tool convenient for debugging applications, but
should not be used by deployed applications as it breaks the assembly
deployment, see the
http://www.mono-project.com/Guidelines:Application_Deployment page.
.TP
-.I "MONO_RTC"
+\fBMONO_RTC\fR
Experimental RTC support in the statistical profiler: if the user has
the permission, more accurate statistics are gathered. The MONO_RTC
value must be restricted to what the Linux rtc allows: power of two
.fi
.TP
-.I "MONO_NO_TLS"
+\fBMONO_NO_TLS\fR
Disable inlining of thread local accesses. Try setting this if you get a segfault
early on in the execution of mono.
.TP
-.I "MONO_SHARED_DIR"
+\fBMONO_SHARED_DIR\fR
If set its the directory where the ".wapi" handle state is stored.
This is the directory where the Windows I/O Emulation layer stores its
shared state data (files, events, mutexes, pipes). By default Mono
will store the ".wapi" directory in the users's home directory.
.TP
-.I "MONO_SHARED_HOSTNAME"
+\fBMONO_SHARED_HOSTNAME\fR
Uses the string value of this variable as a replacement for the host name when
creating file names in the ".wapi" directory. This helps if the host name of
your machine is likely to be changed when a mono application is running or if
share state across multiple Mono processes. This is done to support
home directories that might be shared over the network.
.TP
-.I "MONO_STRICT_IO_EMULATION"
+\fBMONO_STRICT_IO_EMULATION\fR
If set, extra checks are made during IO operations. Currently, this
includes only advisory locks around file writes.
.TP
-.I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM"
+\fBMONO_DISABLE_SHM\fR
If set, disables the shared memory files used for cross-process
handles: process have only private handles. This means that process
and thread handles are not available to other processes, and named
This is can also be enabled by default by passing the
"--disable-shared-handles" option to configure.
.TP
-.I "MONO_THEME"
+\fBMONO_THEME\fR
The name of the theme to be used by Windows.Forms. Available themes today
include "clearlooks", "nice" and "win32".
.Sp
The default is "win32".
.TP
-.I "MONO_TLS_SESSION_CACHE_TIMEOUT"
+\fBMONO_TLS_SESSION_CACHE_TIMEOUT\fR
The time, in seconds, that the SSL/TLS session cache will keep it's entry to
avoid a new negotiation between the client and a server. Negotiation are very
CPU intensive so an application-specific custom value may prove useful for
.Sp
The default is 180 seconds.
.TP
-.I "MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU"
+\fBMONO_THREADS_PER_CPU\fR
The maximum number of threads in the general threadpool will be
20 + (MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU * number of CPUs). The default value for this
variable is 5.
.TP
-.I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS"
+\fBMONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS\fR
Controls the threshold for the XmlSerializer to produce a custom
serializer for a given class instead of using the Reflection-based
interpreter. The possible values are `no' to disable the use of a
should start serializing. The default value is 50, which means that
the a custom serializer will be produced on the 50th use.
.TP
-.I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_DEBUG"
+\fBMONO_XMLSERIALIZER_DEBUG\fR
Set this value to 1 to prevent the serializer from removing the
temporary files that are created for fast serialization; This might
be useful when debugging.
+.TP
+\fBMONO_ASPNET_INHIBIT_SETTINGSMAP\fR
+Mono contains a feature which allows modifying settings in the .config files shipped
+with Mono by using config section mappers. The mappers and the mapping rules are
+defined in the $prefix/etc/mono/2.0/settings.map file and, optionally, in the
+settings.map file found in the top-level directory of your ASP.NET application.
+Both files are read by System.Web on application startup, if they are found at the
+above locations. If you don't want the mapping to be performed you can set this
+variable in your environment before starting the application and no action will
+be taken.
.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES FOR DEBUGGING
.TP
-.I "MONO_ASPNET_NODELETE"
+\fBMONO_ASPNET_NODELETE\fR
If set to any value, temporary source files generated by ASP.NET support
classes will not be removed. They will be kept in the user's temporary
directory.
.TP
-.I "MONO_LOG_LEVEL"
+\fBMONO_LOG_LEVEL\fR
The logging level, possible values are `error', `critical', `warning',
`message', `info' and `debug'. See the DEBUGGING section for more
details.
.TP
-.I "MONO_LOG_MASK"
+\fBMONO_LOG_MASK\fR
Controls the domain of the Mono runtime that logging will apply to.
If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
"asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
.TP
-.I "MONO_TRACE"
+\fBMONO_TRACE\fR
Used for runtime tracing of method calls. The format of the comma separated
trace options is:
.nf
.fi
You can toggle trace output on/off sending a SIGUSR2 signal to the program.
.TP
-.I "MONO_TRACE_LISTENER"
+\fBMONO_TRACE_LISTENER\fR
If set, enables the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener, which will
print the output of the System.Diagnostics Trace and Debug classes.
It can be set to a filename, and to Console.Out or Console.Error to display
See the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener documentation for more
information.
.TP
-.I "MONO_XEXCEPTIONS"
+\fBMONO_XEXCEPTIONS\fR
This throws an exception when a X11 error is encountered; by default a
message is displayed but execution continues
.TP
-.I "MONO_XSYNC"
+\fBMONO_XSYNC\fR
This is used in the System.Windows.Forms implementation when running
with the X11 backend. This is used to debug problems in Windows.Forms
as it forces all of the commands send to X11 server to be done
synchronously. The default mode of operation is asynchronous which
makes it hard to isolate the root of certain problems.
+.TP
+\fBMONO_GENERIC_SHARING\fR
+This environment variable controls the kind of generic sharing used.
+This variable is used by internal JIT developers and should not be
+changed in production. Do not use it.
+.Sp
+The variable controls which classes will have generic code sharing
+enabled.
+.Sp
+Permissible values are:
+.RS
+.TP
+.I "all"
+All generated code can be shared.
+.TP
+.I "collections"
+Only the classes in System.Collections.Generic will have its code
+shared (this is the default value).
+.TP
+.I "corlib"
+Only code in corlib will have its code shared.
+.TP
+.I "none"
+No generic code sharing will be performed.
+.RE
+.Sp
+Generic code sharing by default only applies to collections. The
+Mono JIT by default turns this on.
.SH VALGRIND
If you want to use Valgrind, you will find the file `mono.supp'
useful, it contains the suppressions for the GC which trigger
.nf
valgrind --suppressions=mono.supp mono ...
.fi
+.SH DTRACE
+On some platforms, Mono can expose a set of DTrace probes (also known
+as user-land statically defined, USDT Probes).
+.TP
+They are defined in the file `mono.d'.
+.TP
+.B ves-init-begin, ves-init-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of runtime initialization.
+.TP
+.B method-compile-begin, method-compile-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of method compilation.
+The probe arguments are class name, method name and signature,
+and in case of method-compile-end success or failure of compilation.
+.TP
+.B gc-begin, gc-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of Garbage Collection.
+.TP
+To verify the availability of the probes, run:
+.nf
+ dtrace -P mono'$target' -l -c mono
+.fi
.SH FILES
On Unix assemblies are loaded from the installation lib directory. If you set
`prefix' to /usr, the assemblies will be located in /usr/lib. On
http://www.mono-project.com
.SH SEE ALSO
.PP
-certmgr(1), mcs(1), monocov(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), mozroots(1), xsp(1).
+certmgr(1), csharp(1), mcs(1), mdb(1), monocov(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), mozroots(1), xsp(1).
.PP
For more information on AOT:
http://www.mono-project.com/AOT
projects / mono.git / blobdiff